Red was busy with her board for a good minute before turning to Jack. “Only one message missile Captain. The rest were taken out during the refit as none essential since this is not a combat boat any longer.”
“Oaa. Goody. Well that may just fuck us over if we have to come back out to report to get more help.” Jack looked over his shoulder as Red finished what she was doing and sat back.
“I think I got the messages through Captain. Got a response that was not intelligible at the end though because of the cloud, so I am not sure.”
“Hey…” Pan started yelling. “I was cut off in the middle of talking to my children. They don’t seem to understand that they cannot come with me to the other ship.” Stepping up to Red pushing her body over Chump sitting in the chair next to the console studying. “Get my Comm back immediately forklift. Or do you need more training?”
“That will be enough of that Pan!” Jack lashed out at Pan forgetting to hold his mind blank while he talked. Pan’s eyes grew big as her mouth started opening and closing, staring at Jack. “We are headed deep into the cloud on a rescue mission. It is not Red’s fault the Comms are out and I am definitely going to have to work with you about your people skills.”
Chump being squeezed back over his seat by Pan with her breasts sticking out a foot as she was hyperventilating with rage, looked at Jack turned half around looking back across Red at Pan, decided that things were getting very interesting.
“You said that in my mind Captain! I thought you wanted to keep your new power secrete?”
“Sorry, I do Pan but Red is not the problem, now go back and tend to your assigned job.” Jack tried to keep his face and mind expressionless.
“I heard you Captain.”
“I hope so. I had to yell loud enough over your caterwauling so you would.”
“No. I heard you in my mind talking Dumontee’s.”
“Now that would be nice trick. I think you were hallucinating.” Jack smiled at Pan. “How could I have possibly have learned your language. I can’t even pronounce half your words.” Jack turned back around to his instruments. “I think you were just mad and hearing things that were not there. I think you need to go back to the cargo masters station and calm down Pan.”
Turning to Chump. “You heard him didn’t you Chump?”
Chump was staring at Pan’s bare boobs sticking out across his face now that she was standing up strait and not pining him to the back of the seat with them. “I am not sure what I heard other than you yelling.” The sack under his chin that was the male Dumont’s oxygen storage was starting to inflate as he smiled not taking his eyes off her boobs.
Pan whipped around with her boobs hitting Chump in the face then flinging back and forth across her front from side to side as she slid back down the hold toward the Cargo masters console. Her hands and arms waving around over her head as she gesticulated emphasizing her words. Mumbling something about how stupid men could be.
Jack tuned back around as Chump watched her sit facing the side and the cargo console. Grabbing her still flopping boobs over the nipples with some effort to chase them down, she started collapsing them back toward her chest as she breathed out one long continues breath. All the while her lips kept moving as she continued to talk about how worthless men were without needing to stop long enough to breathe in. Jack had never seen anyone talk so long without breathing (though he had seen a few woman try) and could not take his eyes off of her as she continued to push her boobs in with her fingers over her nipples while talking up a storm to no one in particular. And talk and talk.
Jack had long ran out of breath as he watched in amazement for several minutes with her mouth never slowing until she glanced at them and realized that she was being watched and huffily turned away so they could not see with more derogatory comments following. Her words never stopped or even slowed down though they could no longer see her lips move.
Jack turned away to check his instruments and the tactical screen for possible collisions then turned back to hear her still talking. “My Godstar. Have you ever heard a woman talk so long ever without even taking one breath?” He asked Red without expecting an answer as he wondered just how big her boobs still were and how long she could continue.
“I am timing it for you Captain. I am a bit curious myself.” Red smiled.
Jack just shook his head. “I would think she would run out of things to say eventually.”
“Come Captain.” Chump said from beside Red as he looked up from the lesson on his pad with a glance at Pan. “Have you ever met a woman that did not have something to say? My wife could probably give her a run for the record as you humans say. You should see my wife when she gets really inflated she really is a wind bag when she gets going. I think my wife holds the record.” Glancing at Pan with a smile. “But we will see.”
Jack chuckled. “I suppose you are right Chump.” Then turned around to attend to his own business just glad he had evidentially been able to bluff his way past his laps of attention. “Red, fine tune the collector cone a bit and let’s see how fast we can go in this soup. I really don’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon out here and miss dinner.” But Jack knew that even if they found a hundred year old hulk with the crew long dead, they would be lucky to make it back to the Station before breakfast. Anything else would be even longer.
“Pan, when you get done talking to yourself, check and see what emergency ration stores we have aboard.” But even if they did, Jack knew that he probably couldn’t eat them. Jack gowned in despair and then thought to himself. ‘I bet they are not even trying to find humans something we can eat.’
“I heard that in my mind Captain.” Pan yelled from the Cargo Masters console. She continued talking without slowing down. “We have a month’s supply of rations aboard but not for you. Sorry. It must have slipped that male mind of Chump’s trying to learn the sensor board up there.”
Jack just did his best to ignore her. He was getting tired of her mood swings.
------------------------------
“Five minutes to the distress signal Captain. It is still week even at this range. It must be very old.”
Jack pulled the throttles back letting the drag of the cloud on the scoop slow them down. “Have you got it on the scopes yet?”
“Not clear yet Captain, I am getting a long narrow smudge with something around the middle but not enough for any details. Though the dimensions of the smudge does fit the dimensions of a battle cruiser from an exterminated Empire race in the database. That should only be coincidental since they have been dead for 4,000 years and are on the other side of the Galactic Core.”
“Exterminated?”
“Yes. They had the misfortune while expanding to stumble onto the Ewonox 1063 Clan in another arm of the Galaxy much closer to the Core. The Hundred thousand Supper Battleships of the clan washed over them like water. Though it took a few decades and so weakened the Clan that they suffered total defeat to another Clan a few decades later and the Ewonox 1063 Clan was themselves exterminated.” Red bent forward looking closely at the screen. “Rules have been agreed upon since then to keep that from happening to another Clan.” Turning to smile at Jack. “Though it does still happen, it takes a lot longer now as the Clan is given time to recover as is the Clan our enemy Gods are part of.”
“Ok. Our Enemy Clan is being given time to recover from its defeats? How?”
“Our Enemy Clan has been allowed time to recover the needed resource systems and rebuild its fleets. This fleet was allowed to escape with this Clans last engine factory instead of being whipped out or captured with the rest. Allowing the Clan to continue if it could retake a resource system. The Top Clan God though decided that it would be easier to find new resources than to take back a heavily protected resource system and sent the fleet to find a rich system safe from possible attack far out this arm of the Galaxy while the rest concentrated on keeping and expanding the planetary systems they already had. Building the smaller cruisers
, support ships and Battleship hulls while they wait for this fleet to start sending engines back. So we are here. If this fleet does not succeed the Clan will die. If the Clan dies, the God Empire around the Galactic Core will never know we even exist out here and it will be thousands of years if ever before another attempt to expand out this way is made.
We must destroy the entire fleet without letting ships escape to take the word back to the Clan’s Top God. But you humans should not count on that. They would send a fleet without any Battleships but would number in the millions just to recover the Factory. It is the slow Dreadnaught engine Factory that is being so heavily guarded and protected as the fleet makes its way across your empire looking for a rich resource system that is keeping them from washing so rapidly over your Republic. But then once they find that perfect Heavy metal system and start producing new weapons and shields for the cruisers they have and then Dreadnought engines, you humans and now us, will not stand a chance of surviving as anything but a few slaves.”
Jack took a few minutes to absorb the history lesson. Pan had said something a while back about the enemy having the Dreadnaughts but Jack had had so much else on that he had filed it away and forgotten until now and thanks to almost being killed with information all the details he never wanted to know came flooding up to wash over him. So the news did not come as a big surprise but it still sent cackles up his neck at all the details of the monster 10 mile long ships.
Jack looked up shaking the flood of details out of his mind just as the ship seemed to appear out of the cloud. It only took a second for Jack to realize that it was no ancient alien ship or even that old. It was two Battle Transports stuck nose to stern. Or to be more accurate crashed stern to bow. The stern of the lower ship was burnt with the cooling landing fines melted with their framework pushed arching back up along the hull. The stern of the top ship was pushed down over the bow of the bottom ship almost to the bridge to Jack’s estimate. The top ships cooling and landing fins warped and bent back similarly to the lower fins but not as badly making the bulge around the middle Red had seen in the blob at long range. The bow or what could be seen of the lower ship looked like it had been melted by the engine exhaust of the upper ship as the two ships collided, welding the two ships together.
“So that is why no one has heard from the two ships since you sent them off to The Rock Jack.” Red stared at the image on her screen. “What in the Gods happened Captain Jack?”
“Looks like they hit the cloud at speed and the trailing ship did not dodge. They must have gotten to the end of the tunnel I drilled for them and didn’t slow down. No. At the end of the Cloud battle, the Godship self-destructed creating the Bubble about the time they would have been in the last tunnel we drilled after waiting for the two assault shuttles I sent to catch up to them with samples of most of the alien tech to make sure it reached The Rock. The shock wave must have collapsed the tunnel with them in it at speed.” Jack shook his head in amazement. “See if you can find the shuttles clamped to the hull or did they get swept away by the cloud?”
“Found them just rotating up from around the back as the ship slowly spins on its access. It looks like they were in a battle which does not make sense.”
“Ok did they have to fight their way onto the ship?” Jack asked as he studied the hulk through his canopy as they approached.
“No sir. Looks like one ship was shooting at the other after they collided.”
“What the hell?” Jack punched up the magnified sensors on his screen. It showed many of the two ships turrets pointed at each other with half of them knocked out. Most of the knocked out turrets were on the upper ship’s hull from signs of anti-armor missiles he knew the Platoon of marines and Gronks that he had sent along to protect the aliens had.
Red moved the camera back to the Assault shuttles to show the remnants of some kind of frame that had been set up between the two Shuttles sitting about a hundred feet apart on one side of the lower ship. Tatters of fabric and other materials were randomly drifting out from the frame from the centripetal force of the slowly spinning ship. “They were there for some time before the battle Captain. The emergency food production shelter had been set up with at least one growth cycle completed before the shooting started destroying them I would guess.” Shaking her head. “What I really don’t understand Captain is why the emergency locator beacon was not automatically turned on when the emergency shelter was deployed. We should have heard it as well as all other Godships within 10 lightyears. But our emergency band is silent.”
“Well maybe it was damaged.”
“On both Assault shuttles? Highly unlikely Captain.” Red turned to look at Jack.
“Aaaa wait one, I have watched hundreds of lifepods and boats deserting Godships some 7 months ago now. Why am I just now finding out about this beacon and shouldn’t there be hundreds of them around after destroying two complete fleets?”
“To start with Captain, life pods are a holdover from when the ships were stolen from the original designers and no longer carry beacons. The Gods do not care if the crews die. Only boats that operated with Gods aboard have emergency beacons still. Both the Assault shuttles were God Shuttles and equipped with the beacon even though no Gods were aboard them at the time the refugees took them. Though that could be why. If no Godofficer was there to activate them. As for the Battleship hulks, only a God Officer can initiate emergency beacons on Ships. Though with the emergency beacons located in the Captain’s Cabin and bridge, you destroying that section of most of the Battleships prevented that from happening.”
Taking a deep breath, Red’s nipples peeked out around her wide open jump suit as her whole body shuddered in disgust. “As for destroying two fleets Captain. Actually, you only destroyed a couple of maxi-squadrons. A fleet consists of ten thousand Battleships, a hundred thousand axillaries and a thousand Dreadnaughts. Ten fleets combine to form a Dreadnought fleet.” Red looked up as Jack turned in his seat to stare open mouthed at her. “Then there are line fleets that form the basic battle force and have only Dreadnoughts in them that number 100,000. Ten line fleets combine to form a God fleet.” Shaking her head. “Yes Captain, once they get there factory set up above a parts fabrication building circling the entire equator on the surface of a heavy metal system’s Prime planet, it will be required to produce a hundred Dreadnaught engines a week to send to the Dreadnought factories back at the core and humans to will find the joys of job performance to perfection with execution for minor mistakes. In time you will build more engine factories to go to your other heavy metal systems.”
“Of this fleet’s 10,000 Dreadnoughts, 100,000 Battleships and a Million Auxiliaries’ that include everything from cruisers to transports when this God fleet was created about 10,000 years ago, only 10 Dreadnoughts, about 12,000 Battleships and some 50,000 combat cruisers are left even after most have been destroyed and replaced many times over. Only the majority of the Million Auxiliaries’ have survived mostly because they are ignored by the opposing forces unless it is convenient or they get in the way. Though it is quite common for auxiliary fleets to get into savage battles with other auxiliary fleets. Our Fleet’s Supreme God has been very good at keeping the auxiliary’s out of battles. Probably more because replacing them was costly and took away from Dreadnought production and without them and the resources they transport and protect, Dreadnought production is impossible.”
Red looked up frowning with a strange look Jack was able to recognize as bafflement as the fact was dredged up from the depths of his mind. “Though close to a million auxiliaries are not needed for just one Dreadnought Factory. Which some of our experts say is why they kept losing factories when the auxiliary fleets with their hundreds of thousands of Destroyers and light cruisers could have slowed the enemy down enough to defeat them or at least saved the majority of the factories and even a resource system or two, though it would have cost most of the auxiliary’s. It is also baffling to our people as to why they are dragging so many of the auxil
iary ships along as much as it is costing in fuel and slowing the fleet down even more than the slow factory is already. But then, it could mean that the Supreme Fleet God will use the Engine factory to produce more factories before starting engine production or a combination of the two. All the auxiliary’s would speed constructing the new factories and moving them to other systems as well.” Shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe it plans on producing Battleships or even whole Dreadnoughts instead of just Dreadnought engines but then no one knows a God’s mind.”
Jack turned back to study the hulks. Switching off the cockpit and instrument lights.
“Ok, we have only seen the Battleships I think.” Remembering a Certain Admiral that thought that most of the ships reported by the scouts were simply smaller copies of the Battleships. But then he thought the Battleships were simply small cruisers or even destroyers since there were so damn many of them in the system they had just taken. Was the Admiral right? “What do their cruisers look like? Just copies of the Battleships?”
“The standard cruisers are somewhat like your battleships in construction but a little smaller with what are called Battlecruisers that look like the Battleships but are the same size as the cruisers. All the auxiliary’s are too small to have the Black hole Engines the Battleships and Dreadnoughts have and suffer from the same restrictions all your ships suffer from as far as range, needing reaction mass to operate. Oh and that includes the Factory. It takes an incredible amount of reaction mass just to change direction. After slowing down for the first system that turned out to be a virgin Iron star with no usable heavy metals, the factory ship is basically drifting along behind the Fleet at roughly a light year a year.” Red smiled. “One of the reasons it has taken so many years to reach this deep into this arm and your Republic.”
Battleship Destroyer 2 (Battleship Destoryer) Page 34